Dream a little dream with me
by Mistah Eleganza
Summary: A colony ship gone missing. The Marines are on the way to see why. But Sgt. Marco Capprocelli can't help but feel there's more to this than it seems. Rated for language and violence.


Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I don't own the Aliens franchise or any of it's affiliated trademarks.

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Dream a little dream with me

by Mistah Eleganza

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// transmission originating 1101.78.555.2391.003: Security clearance One Charlie

You know, we've tried this kind of thing before.

Yes, and with less than perfect results.

Exactly what I was going to point out. So what makes you think it'll be different this time?

Please. We've spent years grooming this one. His profile fits every requirement for the project.

You can understand my skepticism, yes?

Of course. You'll just have to trust me.

\\ end intercept: Directive 42

The deck plates of the USS _Alveraan_ reverberated sharply in Sergeant Marco Caprocelli's ears as he made his way across the steel bay of the USCM vessel. The crisp air of the ship was a nice contrast to the aging, recycled atmosphere of Gateway station. He made his way past the anchored dropships, pausing to readjust the strap of his duffel bag. His cadenced approach didn't go unnoticed, though, and as he rounded the corner of a stack of storage crates, all eyes of the group of soldiers lounging there were on him. He stopped mid-stride as he felt their questioning stares. He thought he should say something, anything, to help ease the sudden tension in the room, but before he could utter a word, the lift near the end of the bay came to life, emitting it's passenger. One of the marines, a slender man with a shaved head and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, leapt to his feet and called out.

"Officer on the deck! Ah-tennn-SHUN!" There was a momentary bustle of movement as the marines formed up, straightening shoulders and smoothing uniforms. Marco dropped his duffel bag and came to attention as well as the Asian officer, a colonel, Marco noted, by the insignia on his lapel, made his way to them. The Colonel eyed Marco with undisguised distrust before turning to address the men nearby.

"At ease." Postures slumped as the soldiers resumed their original spots. "Let me be the first to say, I'm not happy about this. But orders are orders, so we move out in forty-five, I repeat, four - five, minutes. No time for a formal brief right now; I'll be filling you in once we're out of cryo." He held his hand up to quell the chorus of groans that arose from all assembled. "Yeah, I know. So shut your holes, and move it. And you –" the Colonel's mouth curled into a malicious grin as he pointing at the bearded marine; one of the more vocal complainers, "you don't like it Chapell, you know where the door is." There were a few half-hearted "yessirs" as the soldiers scattered to attend to the myriad of pre-flight necessities, leaving Marco and the Colonel behind. After the room cleared, the Colonel turned to Marco. Marco snapped to attention again, saluting. The Colonel returned the gesture, then spoke.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Sergeant Marco Caprocelli, reporting for duty pending my transfer, sir!" Marco removed a datapad from his pocket and presented it to the Colonel. He scanned it, occasionally lifting his eyes to glare at Marco.

"Special Ops, huh?" The Colonel questioned as he read.

"Yessir."

"And you've been transferred to the Rapid Response Group?"

"That's what they told me, sir." Marco shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The Colonel sighed heavily, then returned the pad to Marco.

"Well then, Sergeant Caprocelli, I'm Colonel Lee Tsun, and apparently, your new CO."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir." Marco could feel the weight of Tsun's tired gaze.

"I'm sure." The Colonel removed his cap and rubbed his hand over his shaved scalp. "Sergeant, why is it I get the feeling you've got something to do with all this?" He gestured vaguely around him.

"I couldn't tell you, sir." Marco replied evenly, though he knew Tsun's words held some truth.

"Well, we'll talk again after we're on course. For now, head to the bays and help Chapell load munitions."

"Sir!" Marco saluted sharply, then grabbed his bag and jogged off towards the lifts. Colonel Tsun remained motionless for a moment, absentmindedly rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, before he followed, leaving the bay empty and still.

*****

Cryosleep. Marco hated it.

Which was strange. He shouldn't be able to hate it, dislike it, or even be mildly annoyed by it. His mind should be a void right now, but it wasn't. A part of him sluggishly refused to shut down. And that's when the dreams came. Marco knew what it was that caused this. They had told him that his talent made him do this. Feel dreams. Around him, a myriad of visions took shape, those of the other marines. Marco could reach out, taste those dreams, feel out their boundaries, even change their shape. A child's face, or a mother's smile, darting past him. He shifted past the dreams deftly, dodging them, struggling to not be pulled in, to not let them force themselves on him.

But then there was the one dream. The dream of one. If he held himself perfectly still, he could hear that dream. So far away, yet always there. That dream called to him, above all others. It taunted him, cajoled him with a soft rasping hiss, demanding his attention. Marco knew where it was, looming just out of his sight. But it was getting closer, getting closer.

And though Marco desperately wanted to know that dream, he was afraid of what waited with it.

*****

"All right marines, here's the skinny." Colonel Tsun tapped his index finger on the glass of the viewscreen. They had awoken a little under thirty minutes ago, and after the obligatory moaning and groaning over the indecencies of FTL travel, had assembled in the _Alveraan's_ main bay to hear the Colonel's words of wisdom. "We are here, just entering the periphery of the S23a system." A simple 3D schematic of a solar system expanded on the screen.

"Sir, isn't a S-category label reserved for systems on the Rim only-" the speaker, a man named Lopez, Marco recalled, stopped in mid-sentence as the Colonel gave a curt nod, "Ah, shit."

"Indeed, Corporal. S23a lies just a tad on the side of what we might call 'known space'."

"Jesus wept." Chapell, who had seated himself next to Marco, muttered under his breath. "Why the hell are we here, sir?" he shouted out.

"I was about to tell you when I was interrupted, Private!" the Colonel barked out. Chapell groaned and thumped his head facedown on the table in front of him. Tsun turned back to the screen. "Here's the problem. About forty-eight hours before we left Gateway, theSS_ Cassius_ missed it's scheduled re-tasking transmission, as well as it's subsequent one eight hours later." The Colonel pressed a key and schematics of a ship flowed across the viewscreen. The _Cassius_ was huge. Marco recognized its function almost immediately. A colony ship. Long-term. Crewed by hundreds. "She was on route to another system in M19, with plans to do a gravity sling around S23a's star." As the Colonel spoke, a red, striped line lanced through the solar map, showing the _Cassius's_ path. Two red blinking lights appeared, one just before the ship was to enter S23a, and the other just behind the curved path around the white star of the system. "Here," Tsun pointed at the first dot, "was the first retask transmission, and here," he moved his finger to the other dot, "was the second. She didn't attempt for either, so USM Intel puts her somewhere around here." His finger stabbed at the fourth planet of the system, around which a halo of information scrolled out.

"Our orders are simple. If this is just a case of mechanical malfunction, we are to offer the _Cassius_ any assistance she may require. If not, then we are on search and rescue detail." Objections rose from nearly every soldier's mouth. The Colonel raised a hand to still them. "Now I know what you're all thinking. 'Why us?' As far as I can tell, we just happened to be the only flight-ready ship at Gateway at the time. But that doesn't matter. We are all still Marines, and we've got a job to do. Mother's already plotting out possible courses for long-range scans. Pilots, I want best and worst case scenarios for both planetside and null-gravity dropship retrievals, and I want 'em now. Everyone else, prep for this as if we were going in hostile, and gear up as necessary. We'll be entering orbit in two hours, so get a move on, people!" Chairs grated on metal as the marines scattered.

"Caprocelli!" The Colonel shouted out before Marco had gotten out of the room.

"Sir?" Marco paused in the doorway.

"See me in the Command Module in thirty."

*****

The command module of the _Alveraan_ was a pretty compact place, since a centralized "bridge" for a ship that essentially ran itself was more of a convenience than a necessity. Tsun stood near one of the three primary vidscreens that took up most of the modules space, a cup of coffee held in one hand while he casually perused the telemetry statistics that Mother was scrolling down the screen. The lift at the rear of the module whirred to life and allowed Marco to enter. He saluted as the Colonel turned and gestured for him to come in.

"Sergeant, please, come in. Have a seat." Marco stepped over and grabbed one of the chairs near a bank of smaller viewscreens. "Anything to drink? Coffee?" Marco shook his head.

"No thank you, sir."

"Suit yourself." The Colonel leaned up against the opposite bulkhead and turned a questioning stare over to Marco. "I've been going over your service records, Sergeant. Needless to say, I'm a little surprised." Tsun paused, letting the silence stretch. Marco rubbed his forehead nervously. He knew what was coming. He could feel the Colonel's gaze on him. When Marco said nothing, the Colonel picked up a small datapad from the counter he was near and started reading off of it.

"Marcus Alvin Caprocelli, Sergeant, USCM Special Operations Branch, Division 14." Tsun looked over at Marco. "Psi Ops is not exactly a standard detail to be assigned to." The drone of the air ventilation system seemed overly loud in Marco's ears. The moment dragged on before Marco cleared his throat and finally spoke.

"I take it you have some idea about what they do, sir?"

"Vague is the operating word. Most of their files, and subsequently, your records, are 1C classified." Tsun paused to take a sip of coffee. "What is it _you_ did?"

"It's… kind of hard to explain."

"Indulge me."

"Well, off the record, sir," Marco massaged his shaved skull "you know how sound waves work? How they can be cancelled by their inverse? The way they explained it to me is that other psi-active individuals generate some kind of wave form, like a sound wave, and when I'm near them, I make some sort of inverse wave that negates the other guy's talent."

"So you're some sort of psychic dampener, or nullifier, right?"

"Yeah. At least, that's what they think."

"They think?"

"They told me they're not really sure. It's… not like they have any reliable way of measuring something like this. It's all theory, really."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. I mean, it makes some sense. I know I'm doing something, but I'm just not sure what. They told me I don't have a whole lot of, ah, concious control over it." Marco grasped at his neck and turned his head up to look at the ceiling.

"So why the transfer?"

"My request. But I didn't really specify where to." Tsun shook his head.

"Again, why did you leave?" The Colonel was going to push this one. Marco recalled the wrathful stares of the other talents as he would enter a room, and the hate and scorn he could taste from their dreams.

"I, uh, had some personal differences with the other troops." Tsun's brow creased, then he sighed deeply.

"Look. I know you probably shouldn't be divulging any of this, and I appreciate you answering my questions. It's just…" he paused and rubbed at his eyes with one hand. "My men just got back from a tedious, and lengthy assignment. They're in need of, no… _deserve_ some down time, and yet as soon as we get back, I'm handed this launch order, and you're waiting on my doorstep. The whole thing is giving me that kind of gut feeling that I've been inclined to trust. I'm just trying to get things in perspective, right?"

"I think I understand, sir." Tsun nodded. He opened his mouth to say something further when a resounding tone chimed from the console next to him. Mother's machine-pleasant antiseptic voice sounded from above.

"Colonel, the distress beacon from the SS_ Cassius_ has been activated and tracked." A 3D schematic of the system's fourth planet came up on the primary screen, a red pulsing light with a stream of statistics shining from the southern continent. Tsun spoke softly.

"Showtime."

*****

Marco tightened his grip on the pulse rifle that sat in his lap as the dropship bucked wildly once again. Mother had noted that this was the monsoon season for the southern continent, and the weather had not made the flight in any easier.

"Check the next vector. See anything yet?" The pilot's voice came over the crackling, shared communications channel. Something in the planet's gravity field made pinpoint tracking next to impossible, so they were doing it the hard way.

"Negative. Swing back on three mark eight-six, and scan from there." The copilot replied, boredom clearly carrying over on his voice. Marco let his head slump forward to stare at the metal plating of the deck beneath his boots. Though he didn't show it, he felt extremely agitated. Some of it was just spillover from the other marines, but there was something else there.

"Any response on the emergency channels?" It was like he was getting close to something, something huge, and it was beckoning to him, trying to draw him in.

"Course not. Set us up back on three mark eight-two and we'll… Holy mother of god." Every marine glanced forward, confusion and suspicion on their faces. Marco didn't need to be psychic to predict what came next. Tsun's voice rang over the comm.

"Gear up. We found 'em."

Author's Note: Well, there we go. I would like to know what people think of it so far before I post part two.


End file.
